Childhood’s End: The Agony of Our Collective Puberty

By JAY WEIDNER & SHARRON ROSE

The passage from childhood to adulthood happens when the child begins to realise that life is hard, death is certain and the chances are pretty good that he or she is going to be struggling for the rest of their life. These harsh realities wash away the idealism, naiveté and illusions of youth. Also this maturation process causes the youth to have a new understanding of what responsibility and stewardship means as well as the desire to make an impact on reality and leave the world a better place. This process occurs as a result of both experience and information. As a youth gathers more information through the experience of life he or she reaches certain inevitable conclusions.

The initial inquiry into life involves the consumption of vast amounts of information. Some of it is fascinating and life-altering but sad to say, much of it useless within the confines of daily life. As one matures, one begins to learn the art of discernment and to weave their way through information, discarding that which is not useful and keeping that which is. This is how information becomes knowledge. Once information has gone beyond facts and has woven itself into a coherent stream of knowledge, a certain kind of confidence is engendered in the individual.

As we grasp and understand the world around us through the process of turning information into knowledge, we begin to gain experience in a multiplicity of different facets of reality. As a thinking person matures, he or she gains greater knowledge and experience of the multitude of seemingly disparate aspects of reality until they reach a clear cohesion of thought and heightened level of awareness. This new level of awareness occurs when the individual begins to not only look outward to perceive the facts and forces that shape our reality, but focuses inward to digest and distil all that they have learned and experienced. This maturation process, which happens in later adulthood, is called Gnosis or wisdom.

A key to this process is the discovery and understanding of the deceptive power inherent in the massive amounts of manipulation and psychological imprinting that has taken place over the course of life. As this occurs, one gains the ability to perceive reality from a higher perspective and detach from the storm of emotional cravings and psychological addictions, which have veiled his or her innate awareness and cohesion as a human being. Through this process, one learns to discern and clearly decide which of these varieties of knowledge is important and meaningful to his or her life and which is not.

The gathering of information and experience is the first level of this process. The activity of turning information into knowledge is the second part. Turning knowledge into wisdom is its final aspect. Our youth is a relatively short, confusing and often chaotic processing of information. Schools, religious institutions, and the media fill our heads with gigabytes of information. By the time most of us reach puberty the glut of information that has been poured into our heads makes most of us dizzy. It is at this stage in life where the separation of those who will have an effect on the future of the world and those who won’t occurs. The sudden realisation that old age is imminent, death is certain, and working for a living is a necessity causes a large number of people to recede from the act of information gathering. They stop reading. They stop questioning. They are no longer interested in the ebb and flow of the mechanisms of the larger reality. They become numb, jaded, cynical, defeated and desensitised to the power and beauty of the extraordinary gift of human life. The second group embraces the dizzying array of information being offered to them and by puberty they are turning information into knowledge. At this time in their lives, through devotion, focus and discipline, people begin to excel in their chosen areas of exploration be it math, science, sports, the arts and many other fields of endeavour.

Long after college, the birthing of children, and anxiety about employment, if they are lucky, a wonderful new mental process begins. It starts in the late 30s and 40s. Synaptic pathways in the brain that were disconnected from each other previously have now woven themselves into a situation where the countless pods of knowledge begin to interconnect. Revelations, visions and comprehension of their own gifts and unique place in the nature of human experience begin to occur. This interlinking of thought distils experience into wisdom. This next level of discernment, not only engenders the creation of books, movies, philosophical treatises, inventions, and innovation, but also it brings with it a certain inner peace and sense of fulfilment that the immature self lacked.

Fully immersed in life and creative expression, the fear of death begins to recede. From this heightened spiritual perspective, the ones who attain wisdom begin to look at the world around them and bear witness to the evidence arrayed before them. Yes, the vision of connectivity, beauty and wonder that inspired their pursuit still lives within their hearts. However, at the same time, the undeniable evidence of a pathetic and immature reality filled with destruction, divisiveness, nihilism, egotism, greed and sexual depravity is ever present. There is a reason why students are not allowed to study the Kabbalah until they are 35 years old. The human intellect cannot possibly be mature enough until that age to fully comprehend the inner dynamics of the Kabbalah or any of the other deep spiritual and esoteric traditions that have been left for us.

Until around 1992, the human race lived and operated in an extremely isolated fashion. Until the invention of the telephone, telegraph, automobile and train in the early 1900’s people were even more isolated. It is really only in the last 50 years that the human race has become fully aware of the vast and varied cultures, languages and peoples that exist on the Earth.

But in 1992, something happened. Whereas much of the human race before were like isolated babes in the woods surrounded by wolves, confused and simplistic, in 1992, the first coherent stream of information was released all across the planet at the same time. It was appropriately called the World Wide Web. For the first time in human history, any human being who had a laptop or computer could increasingly access all of the information concerning the vast wealth of human history, experience and expression.

This shift was disorienting and confusing just like school was when we first started. A startling and mind expanding compilation of the best and worst aspects of human endeavour, the Internet overwhelmed us with facts, distractions, disinformation, lies, distortions, hopes and fears, everything. It became a mirror of who we are as a species and reflection of our collective psyche. Critics arose decrying that the Internet was a jumble of false ideas, a free for all, a place where a housewife in San Antonio has the same power and voice as a columnist for the New York Times. It can be safely said that the Internet was and is a land of incredible opportunity, massive confusion and one of the most important tools that has ever been invented by the human race.

2012 represents the 20-year anniversary of this great event. Through the course of this time, through the consumption, digestion and integration of massive amounts of information, many people have begun to notice that there is a spiritual awakening occurring. It’s just a rumbling underneath the surface but we all can feel it. More and more we sense there has to be something more to human life than slavery to the manipulations and whims of what many call The Controllers. Rising like a powerful tide, the collective yearning for clarity, intimacy, community and harmony is the result of 20 years of endless information being spewed out by the Internet.

From our metaphorical perspective, the human race in the past 20 years has gone from an infant babe lost in the woods to a post puberty young adult. The same processes that turn a child into an adult are the same processes that are happening across the world at this very moment in time. At first, like school, the Internet was a jumble of information that we were taking in while not even questioning or understanding why we were doing it. In school we were force fed the prevalent conditioned perspective on mathematics, reading, science, history, philosophy and much more, without even knowing why our teachers thought these things were so important. Later when we matured, we realised that many of these skills, which we had learned earlier and frequently thought weren’t needed, suddenly were very useful tools in the game of life. The last 20 years has been a voyage of collecting millions of bits of information, much of it useless to our physical and spiritual growth and maturity as human beings.

Now the second level of this process is starting. All of the secrets, the corruption, the war, the reasons for wars, the understanding of the monetary system, the realisation that conspiracies aren’t theories, the destruction of the environment and the dawning knowledge that all of the members of the human race have a lot more in common than we have ever known before, have become apparent to a large swath of humanity. This coming to grips with the darkest and the lightest aspects of human beingness by people all over the planet marks the beginning of the maturation of the human species. No we are not wise yet. But we are waking up and becoming aware of what has to be done.

The next level in this process, what we call the wisdomification and spiritual rebirth of the human race, will begin occurring after 2012. Because the Internet is so malleable, we can speed up this crazy wisdom process. Clearly, there are among us people who are wise. Some of them have created websites espousing their unique forms of wisdom. These sites are taking the various pods of knowledge and interconnecting them so that the result generates a new clarified vision of reality. Intelligent and discerning people are attracted to these types of sites for one fundamental reason. The information that they are offering, and remember information is the foundation of wisdom, is reliable. The members of the human race who have not backed away from seeing beyond the veil of the vast mental and emotional manipulation of the times, those that know how to relax, take a deep breath, sit in stillness and reflect upon the information being offered with open and discerning minds and hearts, are all reaching the state of wisdom at the same moment. They are the wisdom keepers of the future. These are the enlightened ones who have and will come to grips with and offer solutions to the myriad of problems we collectively face.

This mental dynamic happening on a collective level across geographies, languages, and cultures is the single most earth-shaking event that has happened in human history. It will be these wisdom keepers who will come to understand that the many mistakes of the past from wars to nuclear meltdowns and environmental catastrophe are largely the result of the childlike destructive nature of our predecessors who indulged in and exhibited the most vile and juvenile aspects of themselves.

While we can forgive the excesses of youth, it would be unpardonable for us to allow these excesses to continue. That process is starting now.

What can we expect from a puerile society immersed in a spiritual paradigm that has taught us to believe that humans are essentially sinful, vile creatures, dominated by a celibate, angry, jealous god? That we do not have to be truthful or good or loving but can fully immerse ourselves in falsehood, deceit and corruption with the assurance of dispensation, that if we just ‘believe’ in some alien force, or god outside of ourselves we can be ‘saved’.

The single most important information that we humans need to understand and come to grips with is that our childhood ignorance, our addiction to distraction, has allowed a corporate criminal network to take over the entire planet. The coming wise human race needs to recognise that the only way towards a future where absolute truth, freedom and expression are allowed, is to find a way to divest ourselves of this corporate criminal network. For the last ten years we have been besieged by the darkest conspiracy stories, the most frightening descriptions of disaster, and the whisperings of rumours of an elite who rule us with an iron hand.

Facing up to these dark truths is the first level of the human maturation process. If maturity is caused by our understanding of the darker aspects of life, if maturity is the shedding of preconceived ideals, the realisation that we are responsible for our own actions, that life can be tough, then the maturation of the human race will occur when we come to understand the dark nature of this criminal network and how to rid ourselves of it.

In order for us to get to the collective wisdom aspect of this process, we as a collective are going to have to start behaving like adults. Yes, our childhood was fun and filled with many fond memories, the last 6,000 years of running roughhouse, brawling, backstabbing, living in phantasms and allowing ourselves to indulge in our most perverse fantasies may have been fun, but in retrospect, highly destructive. However, like a young person in their early 20’s, we are beginning to understand that our society, our way of life, and even the human species too can die, that we are not immortal.

With that understanding, like the young adult, the human race needs to set aside the destructive habits of youth. We need to realise that the senseless addiction to video games, pharmaceuticals, violence, rape of the environment and much more are the manifest expression of the last vestiges of childhood. A wise human race would discourage these activities. The argument these indulgences should even be allowed seems ludicrous to a wise person and a wise human race.

The leading edge of the wave of this wisdom sweeping across our planet is now reaching some seriously damning conclusions about our current situation. Like the fat, depressed food addicted boy who wakes up one day and realises he is overweight and out of touch with reality, which forces him into pursuing a healthy lifestyle, that is where we are as a collective today. We as a race are waking up to discover that we are unhealthy, corrupt, bereft of any meaningful spiritual understanding, cynical and arrogant. And now we have to clean up our act.

A wise person knows you cannot continuously dump refuse into the air and water. A wise person knows that dropping depleted uranium is a crime against nature and humanity. A wise person knows that in a world turned upside down, the spiritual dramas we call religion have become corrupted. A wise person knows that no single person should be in total power, that centralisation of power is always a bad idea. A wise person knows it is impossible to regulate the human condition. So why bother?

The world after 2012 is going to be raucous and unnerving. The maturation process, like puberty will be extremely painful to observe. But around 2020, long after the hormones have started shutting down and the pimples have disappeared, a wonderful thing is going to happen. The human race is going to emerge as a beautiful, intelligent and perceptive young adult. And this young adult will be smart enough to know that the true knowledge and wisdom of their elders is the most important thing they can cultivate.

If the Powers That Be do not destroy the freedom on the Internet and poison our environment beyond repair, by 2030 our collective human neuro-system will have matured and developed into a great font of collective wisdom. In that situation, decisions will be made not according to how much money can be made, but how much benefit can be created. The scrapes and bruises of our childhood folly will be repaired as we see the puerile remnants of these false lives and shed them. Nuclear power plants built in areas where tidal waves hit will seem ludicrous to the coming human race. Stockpiling nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, assuming a mutually assured destruction posture and much more of our current experience will seem silly to the people of the future.

It should be noted this process will meet much resistance. No one resists with more adamancy than a child. We can expect countless temper tantrums over the next 20 years. With the awakening power of Internet, the shedding of the phantasm, and the rising experience of our true spiritual nature, no one can hide from the truth.

When the contrivances and distortions of our current spiritual systems have been fully realised and rooted out, then we as a human race will collectively journey to an authentic, heart-centred spiritual path based on truth, beauty, direct knowledge, ubiquity of sources and tolerance.

Wise people know the value of spiritual truth, but they also know when someone is lying to them.

Called by Wired magazine an “authority on the hermetic and alchemical traditions,” and “erudite conspiracy hunter,” JAY WEIDNER, is a renowned author, filmmaker and scholar. Considered to be a ‘modern-day Indiana Jones’ for his ongoing worldwide quests to find clues to mankind’s spiritual destiny via ancient societies and artefacts, his body of work offers great insight into the circumstances that have led to the current global crisis. SHARRON ROSE, MA.Ed, is a true renaissance woman. A filmmaker, choreographer/composer, author, teacher and performer, she has spent the past thirty years working in the fields of education and the esoteric arts to investigate, integrate and impart the knowledge and wisdom of ancient and traditional cultures throughout the world. In 1999, they founded Sacred Mysteries and have worked together to bring new insight into both the physical and metaphysical nature of reality through the contemporary art of filmmaking. For more information, visit www.sacredmysteries.com.